"Are you ready, big boy?"

When I woke up this morning I had a message from a mate of mine in Australia, a mate that is traveling from Australia to Chicago to attend Adepticon. That message simply read "Are you ready, big boy?"

I actually found it a rather fascinating question. Although the "big show" is mere days away, I realized I'd done little (actually nothing) to promote it on my blog as I've done in previous years. I guess my lack of promotion must have worked though, because Hank and the crew are expecting over 1,500 hobbyists of all stripes over the upcoming weekend.

One of the cool things I have done in preparing for the show is to paint up Warlord Crom (see the brooding Orc warlord above, more shots here). This figure (sculpted by Gary Morley) is the "Fantasy" figure for this years uber-mega-crazy-swag bag! This sculpt and the 1,000 or so that are being handed out at Adepticon have been donated by Battlefront/GF9. Pretty darn cool.

In years gone by you'd get a single show figure, plus a cool GF9 doodad, and maybe a few discount coupons for various aftermarket companies. This year, however, will be the grandaddy of all swag bags. I'll show you the loot in a post next week.

Anyway, on to some real content. As I'll be taking lots of photos at Adepticon this weekend, I took my lights up to Delaware to send them out on the truck. This means I'll be without my lights for just over three weeks (this week, next week while Joe stays in IL for Little Wars, and the following week while I'm in the UK for Salute - yeah baby!) To tide me over for content during that time I took a huge batch of photos on Sunday. So, while you won't get up to the minute material from me, you will be getting something.

The Long March Home

Here's a fun little Napoleonic project I've picked up as part of our July issue theme content (for those who've forgotten, I work for Wargames Illustrated as the US Editor). The theme is "The Eagle against the Bear: Napoleon's Invasion of Russia". We're looking at the French army's advance into Russia, the Battle of Borodino (in two scales and scopes), and the retreat of Napoleon's shattered force back to Paris. While checking out a bit of stuff online and in some great books I've picked up over the last few years I came across a great piece of Keith Rocco artwork titled White Misery. You can check it out here.

This piece inspired me to dig a bit through the ranges of various manufacturers looking for Russian grenadiers I could paint up in the same way. Unfortunately while there are a few ranges of Russian grenadiers and Russians in greatcoats, and even Russian grenadiers in greatcoats, I couldn't find any Russian grenadiers in greatcoats at the charge. So I switched to the French, figuring the had to be swaddled up as snugly against the fierce Russian winter.

The Perrys make wonderful miniatures. In this case they made models that would be just perfect to reflect a hard-worn, rag-tag, dreadfully cold battalion of Frenchmen desperate to get back to Paris (and warmth). Using a mix of metal and plastic fusiliers, grenadiers, and voltiguers, I clipped somethings away and added a bit of greenstuff (chiefly as scarves keeping the chill wind from their starving faces).

I also took this opportunity to try out the "dynamic basing" ideas Pete Brown had espoused (and Matt Parkes had made reality) in the WI280 article "Back to Bases".

I have a few painted examples (voltiguers and grenadiers) that I'll show off later. The wole thing can be seen in Wargames Illustrated 285 (July cover date).

Cheers

Dave